


It Lays In My Bones, This Hollow Sorrow, This Hollow Shame

by orange_8_hands



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Background Derek Hales/Kate Argent, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Comment Fic, Gen, POV Second Person, Podfic Available, Pre-Canon, Shame, Sorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:30:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: <i>derek; there is this hollow feeling that never seems to go away.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	It Lays In My Bones, This Hollow Sorrow, This Hollow Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [teen wolf ficathon](http://enparis.livejournal.com/3371.html?thread=32299#t32299) at LJ. Has the dubious pleasure of being my first comment fic. Sorry for mangling your prompt, magic_knickers.
> 
> ETA: Link to the gorgeous podfic and cover art by reena-jenkins is at the end of the work.

  
  
You run to Maine first, as if a whole country is enough miles from smelling the husk of your home, the bones of your family. Laura curls around you and tells you to breath, and you do, feel your chest expand and contract and swallow all the tears you don't have a right to shed. Neither of you plan to be sitting ducks and so you lie about your names, your ages, only keep this is my sister, this is my brother, you are Mark and she is Anna, you're Drew and she's Rachel and neither of you are ever Hale. She slings plates and tutors math; you cut grass and steal wallets. The snow comes and you run in the woods that feel nothing like home, the cold twisting under your skin until you breath ice. You are sixteen and orphaned and devastated and shame cuts your tongue to pieces.  
  
You never grow them back. It's 3 am and Ohio and she crawls onto your mattress and grabs your head, hand sliding through your hair. She smells like alcohol and men's hands and cigarette smoke, she smells like family burned to the ground, and her throat is hoarse as she asks you, "Do you remember what cake she made the night Julia was born?" Her grief hits you like bullets, leaves a mangled mess inside your chest. Her words stumble, as if sorrow works the same as whiskey and she can't face this memory sober. "I remember she was baking and I remember it was cake but I can't remember what kind. I can't-" She presses her face into your shoulder, shakes into your back. "What happens when all the memories are gone?" she asks, and you can't speak because the only word you know how to say is _sorry_ , as if an apology can give you forgiveness for Kate.  
  
You drag her to Michigan on a Wednesday and she drags you to Florida on a Thursday. You take each other away from Tennessee on a Tuesday and she says "ok, ok here" when you arrive in New York on a Sunday. Her back is a straight line and her smile is the smile of an Alpha. Your Aunt Rita had the best smile you've ever seen, bigger than the brightest toothpaste commercial, and it looks like reckoning on Laura's face when you arrive in New York and she says no more running.  You listen to her, have always listened to her, and this is my sister, this is my brother, you are Derek and she is Laura and you both are Hale. She makes phone calls as you prowl streets, watch people because you can't be trusted to join them (they can't be trusted to join you).  You get driver's licenses and start a DVD collection and begin to remember normal. One day you come back inside and she says, "Start thinking about the future. No more horseshit, Derek."  
  
But you can't. Not yet.  
  
Sometimes she comes back smelling like someone else, a friend, a lover.  
  
"You can't trust them," you tell her after two of them leave your apartment, fingers licked of popcorn and the credits rolling on the TV.  
  
"Andy and Meg?"  
  
"Any of them."  
  
She looks at you for a long moment. She is your sister and she's your Alpha and she's the only family you have left besides an uncle trapped in sleep, and it's your fault you both have to live in the silence only two people make. "I need more Pack," she finally says. "No one can replace them but an Alpha needs three betas, Derek, and it's not very likely I'm going to be able to convince werewolves to join us, so it's gotta be humans." She frowns, stepping closer to you. "Hey," she says, catching you. You're shaking, you realize. "Hey," she says again, her hands steady weights on your shoulders, trying to bring you back from the cliff she doesn't know you fell off. "I won't bite any of them without talking to you first, but I like Andy and Meg. They're young and they aren't...wanted. They're looking for something to be loyal to. We can be that."  
  
You still don't know how to explain a hand stroking yours, saying "I'm Kate." You don't know how to explain "come on, it'll be a secret, just between us." You can't explain carelessness in the face of a caution you never knew about, not when the cost was everything.  
  
"Okay," you say, and you both know you're lying, so she takes you to a tattoo shop and goes first, needles piercing skin between shoulder blades. The artist asks, "What is this, Celtic?" and she says, "It's family. It's who we are, and who we were, and who we can become." You take your turn and feel ink sink into your skin, and know something has to give.  
  
 And then one day instead of people you come home to a scrawled note, her spiky words saying, _I needed to check something out. Went home. Pack up and meet me there. No more running, for real this time_. Your heart is racing and you grab your phone just as a text from her cell arrives. It's a picture of a black chevy camaro, your sister's favorite car, and attached is the caption, _I think I'm in love_. It calms your heart enough that you can breath again, that you don't go racing out the door with just your wallet and panic. You take care of all the details she took care of when you first arrived in reverse.  
  
Being separate from her is a drummer in your rib cage though, and you push, give fake smiles and low growls to move them faster than even the fast pace of a natural New Yorker. Nothing matters enough to take, all the things you cared about are still ashes you never sifted through, and you leave New York with the same amount you entered with. The last text she sends before you board the plane is a picture of the woods, and it's not like you know every tree across Hale land but you know these, you remember the view from your porch and your mother's hand cupping the back of your neck like they're seared into your bones.  
  
She doesn't pick you up and you're still too far away from Beacon Hills to feel the alpha bond but you know something is wrong, this is my sister and you are her brother and it's not a surprise, it's not a shock when you finally cross enough distance to feel her and it's someone else in her place. You swallow back bile and screams and tears and rage has you ripping past six years of absence until you find her, looping through woods until you come across her.  
  
She is cut in two and you shift and you howl, you howl like that will bring her back, like that can bring any of them back. You gather her gently and bury her in the shadow of the splinters of your home, and you plant wolf's bane so she can run as a wolf across the stars.  
  
It was carrot cake, you suddenly remember. Your mother made carrot cake the night Julia was born.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] It Lays In My Bones, This Hollow Sorrow, This Hollow Shame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/545764) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




End file.
